Millions of times every day logistics operators get the right package to the right place at the right time. Occasionally things go wrong, but rarely so catastrophically as they did for one of the world’s biggest accountancy and consultancy partnerships, PwC.

While many retailers would love it if we all quietly forgot about Black Friday, the American import looks set to stay for some years yet. Will 2016’s promotions repeat the carrier carnage of 2014 or will retailers succeed in managing consumer demand and expectations?

Globalisation, multi-channel retail, and rapid technological development means that supply chain is becoming ever more complex, so ensuring that organisations have people with the right skills is becoming ever more important.

Physicist Stephen Hawking has predicted a future with “machines whose intelligence exceeds ours by more than ours exceeds that of snails”. so, how could technology available today transform fulfilment? By Penelope Ody

Black Friday 2014 will haunt UK retailers and their logistics partners alike for many years to come. Consumers brawling in the aisles for discounted goods, trailer loads of parcels for home delivery left standing because capacity had been under-estimated, and worst of all, lots and lots of very unhappy customers.

Business interruption now accounts for a much higher proportion of the overall loss than was the case ten years ago – and that is down to increasing interdependencies between companies, the global supply chain and lean production processes.

Engineering and manufacturing have seen big changes over recent years with the emergence of China and India as major players. But the changes ahead promise to be even bigger and will have a significant impact on how supply chains are structured.

Most of the focus of emissions legislation for commercial vehicles has been on pollutants such as NOx and particulates. For example, last year saw the introduction of Euro 6 legislation in Europe – the latest in a series of steps to cut these pollutants.

Royal Mail’s share price rose after Whistl revealed that it was abandoning its end-to-end service. However, the move was less pleasing for the regulator, Ofcom, which has now launched a “fundamental review of the regulation of Royal Mail”.

“I want us to stop talking about digital and physical retail as if they’re two separate things. The customer doesn’t think of it that way, and we can’t either. Customers just want us to solve their everyday problems with an easy, seamless shopping experience.”

Can robots pick single items efficiently? It’s an important question for e-tailers that need to pick a range of disparate items to fulfil an order. So it’s no surprise that Amazon put up $20,000 as first prize in a competition to find the best robot.

For many years, it’s been axiomatic for third party logistics providers that the best place to recruit new customers is from the own account sector – those retailers and manufacturers that have historically chosen to handle their logistics in-house.

If you live in Switzerland, congratulations – you are officially one of the happiest people in the world. At least that is one of the conclusions of the World Happiness Report, published by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

Negotiators from the European Union and United States government are meeting in New York this week to hammer out the terms of a new free trade agreement – it’s the ninth round of negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

To the outsider, the healthcare sector is characterised by the critical nature of so much of the activity. Getting the right drugs and equipment to the right place at the right time can mean life or death.

Twenty years ago, it was only too apparent that many organisations did not harness their supply chain as effectively as they could – and in many cases simply did not recognise its the importance to their business.

It’s not that unusual to hear stories about how some big retailers treat their suppliers – but it is unusual for a professional institute to come out and say that they are giving procurement a bad name.

John Lewis is one of the winners out of Christmas 2014 with online sales growth of 19 per cent. Nevertheless, managing director Andy Street told the BBC: “My personal hope is that this is the high water mark for Black Friday. I don’t think we can put the genie back in the bottle but do […]

In most of the organisations that I have worked in, the IT department has maintained an iron grip on the IT systems used in the business. There are good reasons of course, legality, security, the ability to provide support, and integration of systems across the organisation. But, the world is changing with the development of […]

Driving a hard bargain with your suppliers is one thing, but demanding a cash gift under the threat of delisting, is downright unfair. These, and other harsh words, were directed at Premier Foods last week by the Federation of Small Businesses. It followed a complaint in the press about how Premier manages companies in its […]